The Forgotten Faithful: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 2) by Cajiao, Jez (little red riding hood ebook TXT) 📕

of them; three stood with enormous crossbows braced across their chests, five had huge shields resting on the ground against their left sides, and hammers brandished in their right. One had a sword and shield similar to the others, but its carvings were markedly more ornate, and the final one was different in almost every way.

Where the other nine were bulky humanoids covered in armor and carrying weapons, the tenth was slimmer, with four arms spaced equidistant around the torso and three legs making it look like a tripod. The head was weird as well, making me think of an Indian deity I’d seen depicted; it had three faces, each looking in a different direction, so that it covered the full three hundred and sixty degrees of vision.

They were Golems, nine ‘War’ class and one ‘Servitor’. They weren’t as ornate as the broken ones I’d seen in bits around the Tower, not most of the them anyway, but these were intact, and judging from the dip in mana when Oracle touched the first, they were able to absorb mana from a direct source.

“They can be fixed?” I asked, and Oracle shook her head, still staring at the line of treasure.

“They don’t need to be fixed Jax. They’re intact, they’re just sleeping. All they need is mana to reawaken them…maybe the collectors are also intact! They must have shut down when the Tower did. Seneschal probably shut down all the collectors, not just the Tower’s … do you know what this means?” I shook my head, and Oracle went on,

“It means there are more out there! This was the fourth waystation, one of the closest to the Tower and used as a rest point and place for people to stay when they visited the lake… which means there are four other stations like this out there, and their Golems might be intact as well. We need to find them!” My head was suddenly filled with visions of Golems. We wouldn’t need that great an army if we had dozens of these, surely? But the next second, Oracle ruined the wonderful dream.

“They have huge mana requirements when they’re in battle, but if we can get the local collectors working, that would charge them up, and then we could send them to the Tower. They could refill their cores completely and help so much! And I think this one is a Complex or Level Three Servitor; it’d have to be able to operate independently to be here, so it must be!”

“You’re sure it’s not a Level Four?” I asked quickly, my hopes of upgrading the Genesis Chamber leaping to the front of my mind.

“No, I don’t think so. It doesn’t feel the same. Until it’s awake, though, only Heph would know for sure.”

“Dammit… okay, how do we reawaken them?” I asked, trying to dismiss the disappointment that flared. There was no use complaining; these were an amazing find!

“We need mana, basically. To reawaken a fully dormant Golem takes about a thousand mana for the most basic, and it doubles with each level, so the ‘King’ or level seven take about sixty-four thousand mana.”

“Feck,” I muttered, “How do we go about reactivating the mana collectors?” Oracle started scanning the room in confusion.

“If they are here…the control room must be here too, or nearby. I know they were built to a template, but I never saw it. Sorry, Jax. All I know is that they wouldn’t be far from the control room in case they were needed…”

“You know what these are?” interrupted Riana suddenly. We’d forgotten all about her, and she’d been practically bouncing on the balls of her feet listening to us. “You know about the relics?”

“They’re Golems.” I said absently, gesturing to them, “We’ve a load of damaged ones back at the Tower, and we’ve built some of the lowest or ‘Basic’ class Constructors and Servitors. What do you know about them?”

“You’ve got more? And you can build them?!?” she gasped, flying across the room in just a few steps to grab my arms and stare into my eyes intently. “I need to see them. I’ll swear anything I have to; just let me work with them!”

“You’re an engineer, right?” I asked her, getting a fervent nod. “And an archeologist, I guess. You’ll need to speak to Heph and Seneschal, but I’ve no issue with it.”

“Who are they, and what’s an archeologist?” she asked firmly. “You will tell me everything you know about this.”

“Riana!” snapped Hanau, stepping in close and grabbing her arm to tug her free and glaring at her before turning back to me. “I apologize, Lord Jax... Riana is an asset to the crew, as skilled as she is with both ancient magics and modern technology. She sometimes forgets herself, however…” Riana’s face blanched when she realized what she’d done, and she started stammering an apology, until I held up a hand to stop them both.

“Honestly, it’s all right. I like that enthusiasm; I can certainly use it! I’ll make this same offer to the rest of your crew later, it’s the one I make to all my new people. Join me, swear loyalty to me, and I’ll support you. That includes, for a select few, gaining access to our Hall of Memories. We have skill memories from before the cataclysm, several hundred of them, and depending on the abilities, desires, and loyalty of people, they may be given one or more of these. To answer your next questions, yes, I’m Lord Jax, the one that’s at war with Barabarattas, and yes, I claimed and cleared the Great Tower, making me the ruler of these lands. In the Tower were three wisps, all with knowledge of the ancient world. Seneschal is in charge of the Tower itself; he looks after the physical structure and maintains it, although at the moment, it’s more of a job of slowly repairing it, as it’s very badly damaged. Hephaestus is the master of Golems. He creates and controls them, and these ten will make